Apply Pressure
by LithiumDoll
Summary: It's not looking good  1x10 coda


Finch risks glancing in the rear view mirror as often as he can, but given the speed he's driving it's simply not often enough for peace of mind.

His passenger is breathing, he thinks, but it's impossible to tell and that's a concern – that, and the silence. Reese isn't given to small talk (Finch has been grateful for that more than once) but he's never been _silent_. Not like this.

"Talk to me, Mr Reese."

The almost shapeless shadow in the back seat doesn't move, but it replies in a gravelly whisper that's stronger than Finch had dared hope. "About what?"

A question, not an answer, naturally; that's oddly comforting. "Anything."

When the quiet stretches too long for his nerves, his voice sharpens. "_Reese_?"

"I'm _thinking_." Reese's slurred tone is close to petulant. Or amused, it's hard to tell.

Finch grits his teeth as the road dips under the car; bone grates against metal grates against bone and his hands would be shaking, if he had any inclination to let them. "I see," he says breathlessly. "Perhaps you'd consider thinking out loud?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, Harold. Where are we going?"

In the few short minutes since they peeled out of the parking garage, Finch has been debating little else. "I own a clinic upstate," he ventures with an unfamiliar sense of utterly baseless hope.

Reese is silent again, but this time it's a considered silence. Then, "maybe somewhere a little closer."

(_It's not looking good._)

Understatement is something they share in common. Under the glare of a red light Finch pulls a hard left, as mindful of Reese's condition as he can be, given the screeching tires and blaring horns of oncoming traffic.

When they're safely away, he presses a button on the dash and says, "Call Megan Tillman."

-o-

Megan is standing outside her apartment block when Finch pulls up to the curb; she's wearing gray sweats and a concerned frown, and her hair hangs in damp tendrils around her face. When she opens the back door of the car and leans in, she pales.

"What-" she stutters, and then swallows. Her mouth tightens. "Never mind. _Okay_," she says firmly, drawing the armor of her profession around her. She reaches unflinchingly for Reese's neck to check for a pulse and then begins to pull him towards her. "Help me get him inside," she instructs crisply.

Though Finch would rarely consider the word 'lucky' to be appropriate when associated with those the machine selects for intervention, he recognizes they're more than fortunate to have a doctor who owes them a favor.

They carry Reese between them, one arm slung over each of their shoulders. Megan takes most of the weight, because adrenaline can do incredible things, but it can only do so much for a body that long-since knows it's broken. Finch was running on empty three potholes and a sudden U-turn ago.

She peppers him with questions he does his best to answer. Allergies are easy, as is the previous history of trauma; he knows every injury Reese has taken, the scars are left starkly in black and white within the files Finch appropriated.

Exactly what happened tonight is a different story, because he was made blind, useless. He doesn't know nearly enough, and though he isn't prone to acts of personal vengeance, he thinks he may make an exception for the people who placed him in that position.

"It's okay," she says soothingly when he explains how little he knows, as if he were somehow the one in need of reassurance, which is plainly ridiculous. He's about to tell her so when she asks, "how long ago?"

He checks his watch. "Approximately seventeen and a half minutes."

They exit the elevator, awkwardly hauling, carrying and dragging each other towards her door. Reese is a dead weight; Finch's mouth twists sourly at the involuntary wording of his thoughts.

Reese shudders when they lay him down on the kitchen table; his eyes flutter once and then close, expression gone slack. Megan reaches for her scissors and begins to cut the sodden once-white shirt away; Finch is expecting more questions. He can see them waiting in in the set of her jaw and the light in her eyes. He's expecting demands too – is ready to field away any insistence that they go to the hospital.

"I know you can't go to the hospital," she says, "but he needs a surgeon. All I can do is buy you some time."

He's far better at reading people than this, usually. It makes him uneasy, but he rallies. "Just keep him stable. No more than an hour."

By then the transport will be here to transfer Reese to a private facility that rarely asks questions. Particularly not of its owner.

(Later, when he calls by to update her, she'll ask, "_Why_? Why do you do this?"

And the answer he gave Reese isn't suitable, not while they both have the fresh memory of his blood drying on their hands. Every other reason his brain supplies seems trite. Unworthy. "It's complex," he'll manage.

Her eyes will soften with something close enough to pity that it makes him flinch; she won't ever ask again.)

"He's going into shock," she mutters, a thin line of worry drawn between her eyebrows.

Privately, Finch thinks she's being optimistic. Reese was going into shock when he all but fell, clammy and pale, into the car. Now his eyes are sunken in dark shadows and his breath is quick and shallow. Now, he's there.

(_I wanted to say thank you, Harold. For giving me a second chance._)

Megan crosses quickly to her couch and pulls the cushions and a throw haphazardly into her arms. The cushions she stuffs under Reese's legs, the throw she tucks efficiently around his upper chest, more concerned with immediacy than care.

She jerks open a draw and grabs a handful of dishcloths, presses them hard on the seeping hole in Reese's side. Reese jerks, but doesn't wake. Red spreads quickly through the pinks and blues of the printed flowers, but stops dripping into the glistening pool collecting on the floor.

Finch makes a motion towards the drawer, intending to do the same with the second wound, but Megan shakes her head and nods to a messy rack of spices on the counter. "One teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of baking soda-"

"Mixed in a quart of water," Finch finishes, already moving. "Yes."

They both freeze momentarily when Reese coughs lightly. "I told you not to come," he rasps, eyes still closed. "Next time I'll say please."

"I suspect you haven't fully grasped the nature of our arrangement, Mr Reese." Finch busies himself finding the ingredients to the solution. "Although politeness is always appreciated," he adds.

When Finch returns with the cup clasped tightly in both hands, Reese's eyes slowly open. His expression is impassive and when his eyes flick to Megan he regards her with the stoic lack of concern that Finch expects. Demands. Relies on. Has never found disquieting, until now. "How bad is it?"

"Bad," she answers bluntly. She peels the wad of towels gently away and surveys the blood-slicked entrance wound clinically. "And you were lucky."

"I feel lucky," Reese agrees mildly, the corner of his mouth lifting.

Megan's smile seems almost unwilling; the huffed breath of grudgingly affectionate exasperation she lets out mirrors the one Finch keeps sternly inside. "I need to pick up some supplies," she says. "If Mohammad can't go to the hospital … "

She turns and Finch straightens alertly, trying to keep a spasm of pain from working it's way from his shoulders to his expression.

She doesn't seem to notice. "Keep pressure on the wound and he needs to drink the solution slowly if he can, just sips. It should take about quarter of an hour to get through, but I'll be back before then. And there's whiskey in the sideboard."

Finch thinks Reese a touch beyond a stiff drink, but she's the doctor. "How much should he have?"

"No, that's for you." She smiles a little and he musters one in return.

On the way out of the their make-shift theatre, she busies herself picking up the detritus of something that isn't a betrayal, but feels like it just the same. Finch opens his mouth to suggest she takes something to remove the evidence of their path to her door, but closes it when he sees a cloth and a bottle of cleaner are already in her hand.

The door shuts; Finch keeps it in his peripheral vision as he walks stiffly to Reese's side. He has no idea what he could possibly do if Snow appears, but nonetheless. Nonetheless.

Reese's cell phone trills from his jacket pocket. One-handed, the other still diligently pressing down, Finch answers for him. He notes the caller ID and speaks quietly. "Hello, Detective Fusco."

"I'm hearing things." Fusco sounds awkward and flustered; it's easy to imagine him hunched over his cell phone in an empty stairwell, waiting for the door that will end his career to open.

"Hearing things is usually an issue for a psychiatrist," Finch suggests. "Would you like me to find you one?"

"Funny," Fusco grumbles, unimpressed. "I'm hearing things about CIA spooks and a shooting, and I'm guessing that those things are right, seeing as you're answering for our mutual … friend."

"Did you want something, Detective?"

Fusco says nothing for a long time, but Finch is patient. Patience is familiar, comforting: he has nothing to do but wait. Wait, and press firmly down. Finally, Fusco says, "he okay?"

"As well as can be expected." Finch glances to the wound in Reese's leg; a towel tightened around it, but otherwise neglected in favor of its twin. "How is Detective Carter?"

Fusco grunts. "Came in with a face like a thundercloud, went into the captain's office and she ain't been out since. You want to tell me what happened?"

"No. Can you get closer to the office?"

"Sure, but I can't make anything out."

"You don't have to, Detective. Just make sure your cell phone is on."

"Right, right."

Fusco hangs up and Finch is tempted to open his own cell phone to access the conversation that will shortly be streaming in. He can't seem to make himself move. A few more minutes, he thinks. Or when Megan returns.

Belatedly, he realizes that he never questioned her intent – that he should be monitoring her now, making sure she hasn't gone directly to the police. She'd been calm and helpful, but that meant nothing.

When he shifts his weight to move, Reese's hand tightens on his arm; he hadn't even noticed it was resting there. "It'll wait."

"Perhaps not," Finch warns, but he doesn't try and move again.

"If Megan had called this in, we'd be breathing tear gas already."

Reese is right. "Besides," he answers, "she'd have just as much to lose if we talked." If he'd been thinking clearly - if he hadn't been distracted ensuring that he maintained precisely the right pressure on the blood-soaked towel under his hands - he'd know that.

Reese's tone is soft, inflectionless. "You'd do that?"

"Of course not. Detective Fusco enquired after your health."

"That's sweet." The delivery is deadpan and Finch debates telling Reese that the man genuinely did seem concerned, rather than hopeful. But it's not his place, nor his business. Only someone who saw far more than anyone could imagine could be so keenly aware of the value of privacy.

Or so hypocritical.

"And Carter?" Reese's expression shifts and usually Finch can read the subtext as easily as the text, but the slur of pain is making it harder.

"Alive and well. Doubtless counting her thirty pieces of silver."

Finch hadn't realized he was quite so bitter until he heard the acid etching his tone. Intellectually, he knew Carter hadn't betrayed them; that she'd done her job. Done it well and undoubtedly with the full interest of the public and perhaps even Reese himself at heart.

She'd almost certainly been lied to, and was almost certainly aware of that. She'd weighed and measured and she'd done what she'd thought was right.

The simmering anger didn't abate.

"She didn't do anything wrong until she helped us," Reese points out quietly.

"Yes. Well. Fortunately for her, the cameras were still offline when she did, so no one saw her."

"Or you."

"Or me." When Finch eases pressure, he's cautiously pleased to see no fresh blood bubble up. He brings the glass to Reese's lips with one hand; with the other he cups the back of Reese's head and raises it, just enough to avoid choking. It feels uncomfortably, unfamiliarly intimate, but he forbears. "Just a sip. Doctor's orders."

Reese obeys, swallows with a grimace and looks, somehow, even more exhausted when Finch lowers him carefully back. But there's steel in his grip when he squeezes Finch's arm. "Don't do that again. Some people can't be ... some people -"

He trails away; his eyes close and his hand finally relaxes. Finch's breath catches until he feels the rise and fall of the chest under his hand.

Some people can't be replaced, Reese had been about to say, Finch is sure. And he's absolutely correct, even if he clearly doesn't include himself.

Well. They'd have to work on that.

(_It's not over, John._)


End file.
